* Mary Hays, I believe, is little known: but from her
“Letters and Essays,” she is evidently a Wollstonecraftian. “I cannot mention
(says she) the admirable advocate for the rights of women, without pausing to
pay a tribute of grateful respect, in the name of my sex, to the virtue and
talents of a writer, who with equal courage and ability, hath endeavoured to
rescue the female mind from those prejudices which have been the canker of
genuine virtue . . . The right of woman and the name of Wollstonecraft, will
go down to posterity with reverence.” Letters,
etc. p. 21. Mary Hays ridicules “the good lady who studied her Bible, and
obliged her children to say their prayers, and go statedly to church.” p. 34.
Her expressions respecting the European Governments are, in a high degree,
inflammatory. See pages 14, 15, 17, 18, 19.